"Wow...what a trip!",
Jeff sighed as he admired the colorful sparkles that surrounded
him. Cronos shook his head to get rid of the giddy feeling that
always accompanied time travel. He scanned the surroundings, and
soon concluded that there were no dangers imminent and relaxed.
They stepped out of the sparkling transporter field, Jeff
shouldered his ghettoblaster and they started out to find those
precious dinosaur eggs they were sent to find.

Pink Floyd music is adored by
thousands of hippies around the world, but to a Tyrannosaurus
Rex, it is totally incomprehensible (and probably edible), so
Elmer emerged from his cave and decided to examine (and taste)
the source of the strange sounds.

"Oh wow man, check this
out!", Jeff exclaimed as he discovered a huge 5-leaved plant
sprouting from the prehistoric soil. "This one is good for a
couple of dozen joints", Jeff said and started yanking the
large herb from the ground. Cronos didn't totally understand
Jeff's fascination with the strange plant, and he didn't like the
noise coming from the radio that Jeff brought. In fact, Cronos
didn't like that he had to go on this mission with Jeff. It was
not that he didn't like him, you could always have a good laugh
with the old hippie, but he was not really focused on what he was
doing. Cronos was always told to be focused on one thing at a
time, and he focused on finding eggs now and not on strange
plants and loud music. "Come on, will ya!", he said and
started off towards a patch of trees that just might hide some of
those big, leathery eggs that were so valuable to the boys back
home. "Yeah...shit..", Jeff was pulling at the plant
with all his might, but the plant was firmly rooted and had no
intension of travelling through time and ending up being smoked
at some weird party. Cronos looked over his shoulder and saw Jeff
struggling with the big piece of vegetation. "Shit", he
mumbled and ran over to Jeff, and took him by the collar and
pulled hard. Jeff was holding on to the plant with both arms and
when Cronos pulled him off it, one leaf tore off and Jeff crashed
to the ground, clutching the piece of herb.
"Allright!", Jeff cried and quickly stuffed the leaf in
one of his pockets, and picked up the ghettoblaster. "When
we get back we have to do some serious smoking!"

Elmer craned his neck to see over
the trees and saw two, large apes walking on their back legs. The
sound was emerging from one of them (the skinny one, use him as
an appetizer) and the other one (wow, pretty meaty looking) would
do nicely for dinner. "Wow, major dinosaur thing over there
man!", Jeff exclaimed as he spotted Elmer's huge head and
the gaping mouth containing rows of dripping fangs.
"Shit," Cronos sighed and pulled the Dino-Blast rifle,
set it to 'Totally Annihilate' and aimed it roughly at the
carnivorous dinosaur in front of him.

First note: You might wonder why
Cronos didn't aim more precisely. Well, when you set a Dino-Blast
rifle to 'Totally Annihilate', it will be so devastating that
everything in a 50 metre half-circle in front of the shooter will
be reduced to a pile of smoking ashes. Normally, this is only
used when attacked by a gang of at least 5 hunger-crazed
dinosaurs, but Cronos always wanted to do things right.

"Jeff, take cover",
Cronos yelled. Jeff, who was examining some zarjaz colored stones
he found, looked up and sat down behind a rock, taking the leaf
from his pocket. He stared at it like a mother looks at her
newborn baby, cradling it in his arms. Shine on you crazy
diamond... "Eat sub-atomic particle distorters,
sucker", Cronos whispered and pulled the trigger. Cronos
expected a small-scale armageddon to take place right in front of
him, but all that happened was that the gun spluttered a bit and
finally emitted a small ball of light that flew towards the
Tyrannosaurus, hitting it in the chest. Elmer wasn't happy. In
fact, Elmer was extremely pissed off. That big ape did something
and now he felt this sharp pain on his chest, making him rather
angry. He already felt the migraine coming again, and he hadn't
even had dinner yet! So he roared, and crashed throught the
trees, going for the big ape, mouth watering, fangs ready to tear
flesh and shatter bones. For a tiny fraction of a nanosecond,
Cronos was worried. The gun failed and now a infuriated
Tyrranosaurus Rex was coming towards him - and it didn't look
like it came to give him a friendly hug. Jeff looked up from his
rock and quickly sat down again. "I feel some very negative
vibes here", he muttered while changing the tape in his
ghettoblaster. "Dark side of the moon...yeah..." Now he
was clearly instructed to let Cronos handle the fighting. He was
there because he was pretty good at identifying those pretty
amazing dinosaur eggs and because he secretly hoped to find the
forefathers of the modern Llama, and maybe have a word with one
of those caveman dudes to get some pointers on herbal tea. Cronos
backed off a bit, nearly stumbling over a small dead tree lying
on the ground. Thoughts connected in his head and he picked up
the tree and smacked the dinosaur with it in the stomach. Now the
beast surely wasn't prepared for this kind of action, was almost
knocked off its feet, and was left gasping for breath, getting
angrier all the time. Elmer decided that it was time for some
clever movements and swung his large, scaled tail and succesfully
hit the large ape full in the chest. Now a direct hit from his
tail was enough to fell small trees, so he expected no more
troubles from this nasty creature. He paused for a while,
admiring his work - the ape was knocked out. Cronos felt like a
train had run over him. He was thrown against the large rock and
heard and felt several crushing noises. Also, he lost his hearing
aid and his consiousness. Jeff felt the rock tremble and decided
that it was time to investigate things. Now he knew Cronos'
reputation and expected the dinosaur to be reduced to something
harmless, and was a bit surprised to find Cronos lying on the
rock, spaced out. "Hey Cronos, are you allright. You need an
aspirin or something?" Jeff looked up to the towering figure
of the dinosaur and felt a bit nervous, it didn't look very
friendly. "Err..hey man, take it easy. I mean lose the
violence scene okay? Shit Cronos, I need you man..."

Elmer was glowering. Time to eat.
The only thing he had to do now was to decide which one to devour
first...

Jeff's mind was racing. How to get
Cronos around again? YES!! He fumbled madly for the pouch hanging
from a necklace on his chest. It contained his emergency joint,
and boy, this was an emergency! He lit it and inhaled deeply,
pausing very briefly to admire the taste of the great stuff and
exhaled into Cronos' face. The dinosaur was slowly approaching.
Once more he blew a large amount of blue smoke into Cronos' face
and Cronos coughed, blinked his eyes and got to his feet
immediately when he recognized the smell.
"What...where...how......SHIT!!!" Cronos slapped
himself in the face to get his act together and immediately
remembered the rather large dino that he had to deal with
immediately. He spun around and ducked to avoid a huge claw aimed
at his head. The monster's jaws snapped and it roared as it found
out that it missed. "Wow, you gotta do something about your
breath odor man!", Jeff said and hid under the rock this
time. "Show time!", yelled Cronos. He had positioned
himself behind the monster and produced a number of small
explosives attached to a chain. He swung the chain a couple of
times and let go, the chain wound itself around the neck of the
creature and the explosives detonated upon impact, sending the
monster thrashing around, blinded, mad.

Elmer was having a bad day. Not
only did he have a massive migraine now, he was also hungry and
was totally confused by some very painful things that hit him.
While trying to get rid of the pain, he saw the large ape move
around, picking up the small tree. Cronos sensed victory as he
grabbed the tree and hit the creature on the head with all his
might. The tree was smashed, splinters flying around. The
dinosaur crashed to the ground, large clouds of dust going up in
the air, the ground rumbled. "Right", Cronos stated. He
walked over to the rock and collected Jeff. "Jouser, he
looks kinda goofy now. You didn't really kill him did you?"
"Naahh..he'll live", Cronos mumbled. Jeff climbed off
the rock, carefully avoiding some dead rats lying around.
"Come on, we've got work to do." Elmer was knocked out
cold. He felt faint rumbles in his stomach as he was lying there.
One thought crossed his mind just before he passed out. "I
need a vacation."

...Warp

"Please fill in form 3ER-ST.
Write in capital letters and don't forget to sign it sir".
The pretty young clerk handed Kelly a sheet of paper and
continued filing her fingernails. Studying the form, Kelly walked
towards a desk and sat down in order to answer the various
questions. While puzzling on the question "Have you even
been or are you currently engaged in any relationship with a
being from a planet other than yours?", he was disturbed by
the rustle of chains and the smell of leather. Crashing in the
seat next to him was a large figure clad in black leather with
all sorts of insulting graffiti on it. Slowly, he removed his
headphones and immediately, the sounds of extremely loud and
violent music filled the room. He reached into his pocket, and
the music was cut off abruptly. "So you want to be a hero
huh?", he said in a perilous voice. "Well
er....yes.", Kelly replied in a somewhat shaking voice.
"I thought becoming a Space Pilot would be nice."
"HA! Space Pilot? Are you kidding me?" The mountainous
man threw back his head revealing some safety pins connecting the
two sides of a rather large cut in his neck. Laughing madly, he
put an enormous arm around the shoulders of Kelly. The pressure
made him feel extremely uncomfortable but he could not escape the
tight grip. The man leaned over until Kelly could smell the cheap
booze and noticed that one eye was really a small camera,
constantly moving in all directions. "I have something
better for you", he whispered. "Why not become a warp master?"
"Uhhhh....I don't think that is such a good idea. I really
like to be a space pilot. My father always said..."
"Shut up! Don't give me any stupid excuses. You're going
into the warp whether you like it or not!" Rising from his
chair, he put his headphones back on and reached into his pocket
again. With one hand, he lifted Kelly and walked out of the door.
Kelly was struggling in the iron lock, and tried to protest.
"Sir....I really don't think you should do this. I came here
to be a space pilot...." "NONSENSE", the man
bellowed as he opened the door of a small cubicle and dumped
Kelly in it. The protests of Kelly were reduced to a muffled
mumbling as the door was closed. Suddenly, someone seemed to turn
off the lights...

Total darkness imprisoned him and
he felt a tingling feeling all over his body. Suddenly, the
lights went on again, and he was standing on a small plateau in a
brilliantly lit room. A staggeringly beautiful girl clad in a
very tight suit which revealed everything that Kelly ever dreamed
of walked towards him. "Ah, there you are sir. We have been
expecting you for a long time." "Where am I?",
Kelly said in a trembling voice. Drops of sweat appeared on his
forehead as he intensely studied the gracious female.
"Surely you know sir, you have been preparing for the warp
all your life, haven't you?" "This must be some kind of
mistake. I don't even know what a warp is!" The girl looked
at him with an amazed look in her fantastic eyes. "Please
wait here. I will be back". She turned around sharply and
disappeared through a door. Stunned by such a dazzling display of
beauty, Kelly stood on his dwindling legs, not able to speak at
all. "I think it are the Cenobytes again sir. We have a warp
master here who doesn't know he is a warp master!" The man
sitting behind the large desk uttered a soft curse and shook his
head. "I'm sorry for him, but we must continue. The
Gal'Rhimm are in serious trouble and we MUST provide them with a
warp master. Prepare him!" - "But sir. He is completely
ignorant of what is going to happen...." "I'm sorry,
but we HAVE to continue this project. Prepare him!"
"OK", the girl said reluctantly and walked out of the
door. Behind her the officer sighed and his eyes followed every
movement of her perfect locomotion. Kelly was shaken out of his
trance when she urged him to follow her. "Please come this
way sir...". They went through a small corridor which came
out into a very large hall, in which only one thing was
recognisable: A very slim and fast looking space ship. He
followed her towards the ship and she pressed a small button,
just under the canopy. With a slow hiss, the glass dome slid open
revealing a small cockpit. "Please enter this craft
sir". Enchanted by the tone of her voice, he climbed into
the cockpit and sat down into the chair. She handed him a large
helmet. "Well, I guess you're on your own from here. Good
luck". She kissed him softly on his lips. With his senses
completely obliterated, he put on the helmet; immediately after
that, the canopy closed itself above his head and he noticed a
slight tremble of the ship when the main engines were activated.
He saw the girl walking away, holding a small device in her
hands. The g-forces pressed him back in his chair when the ship
was launched into the unknown nothingness. A soft voice crackled
in his helmet. "By the way, my name is Alida."

This text was published in the Atari
ST diskmag "ST News" and is used by kind
permission of Richard Karsmakers. Source for this
article: http://www.st-news.com